LOS ANGELES : City Panel Opts Not to Alter Steel-Frame Building Standards

Despite widespread evidence that construction techniques for steel-frame buildings proved inadequate during the Northridge earthquake, building owners will be allowed to use the same methods to repair the damage, Los Angeles city officials said Tuesday.

Citing concern about the high cost of inspecting and repairing such buildings, a city panel recommended that building owners be allowed to devise their own inspection and repair plans using current repair methods.

Building officials defended the decision, saying that current technology kept steel-frame buildings from collapsing. They added that government-funded studies of quake damage have yet to provide new repair methods.

After the Northridge quake, engineers were surprised to hear widespread reports of cracks in the joints of steel-frame buildings because such frames are designed to bend with the enormous force of an earthquake without breaking.

Engineers emphasized that no steel-frame buildings came close to collapsing in the quake. However, an 11-story Westside structure was evacuated two weeks ago after engineers discovered that its steel frame had been dangerously weakened.

The owners of about 300 steel-frame buildings in the high-damage areas of the San Fernando Valley and the Westside will be required to conduct their own inspections of steel joints within three months of notification by the city, under a recommendation approved by the City Council’s Ad Hoc Committee on Earthquake Recovery.

Building owners will be allowed to use current repair methods, pending a case-by-case approval by city inspectors. It will be up to each building owner to use higher repair standards to increase the strength of steel joints so they can withstand future earthquakes.

Repairs must be completed within two years of the inspection.

Inspection charges alone can range from $10,000 to $60,000 a building. But the cost can be cut if building owners devise inspection and repair plans tailored to their particular structures and the amount of damage suffered, said Richard Holguin, assistant chief of the city’s building bureau.

Building officials previously had suggested a strict set of rules for inspecting steel joints and recommended a one-year time limit for owners to make repairs.

Holguin rejected suggestions that building owners and their engineers might take advantage of the liberal guidelines and make only minimal repairs.

“A structural engineer who does that would be putting his license on the line,” he said.

Geoff Ely, executive director of the Building Owners and Managers Assn., representing 1,500 members throughout Los Angeles County, said the proposal “made a lot of sense” and echoed Holguin’s sentiments that current repair methods are adequate.